Background
The Dalai Lama once said the way to change the world is to teach one generation mindfulness. Efforts to bring contemplative practices into schools isn’t new, but establishing rigorous research behind these interventions will help the integration and transportability of such interventions in schools. The Compassionate Mind Training (CMT), a form of contemplative intervention, has previously been shown to be efficacious in promoting school staff well-being and prosocial behaviors. Whether the CMT study is effective as a wellness intervention for school children has yet to be studied.
The Study
The research team based out of the United Kingdom recruited 67 students aged 11 and 12 to participate in either a Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) lesson as the control condition or a Compassionate Mind Training (CMT-P) for pupils, over a five week period. A mixed-methods design that used quantitative and qualitative design was utilized to explore the effects of the CMT group on student outcomes and how well it can be integrated. The research team collected self-report measures such as anxiety, self-compassion, perfectionism, emotions, and self-esteem.
The Results
The study found that the students reported an overall positive experience of the CMT intervention for students. Students found the intervention’s lessons, content, and practices to be beneficial. Those in the experimental CMT group had a significant reduction in anxiety at the end of the intervention compared to the group that only received the PSHE lesson. Further analysis of how the students described the intervention described emotional regulation, kindness to others, and feelings of inclusion. These benefits were also reported by class teachers of those students in the CMT group. The study concludes that the CMT for pupils could be a promising school-based wellbeing intervention for improving prosocial behaviors and protecting child mental health.
